


A Tale of Troubles

by AutumnMalarkey



Category: Haven - Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 04:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1843999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnMalarkey/pseuds/AutumnMalarkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All was well and perfect for the little girl with the bright eyes, smile, and heart. One night her mommy tucked her softly into bed, pressed a kiss to her nose and hummed her to sleep. Little did Jordan McKee know that would be the last time her mother ever touched her in such a caring manner - This was the night her world fell apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale of Troubles

It was eight in the evening when Jordan McKee was tucked into her bed by her mother. The small seven year old was thankful for the warmth and comfort of her blankets to be wrapped around her. A tired smile lulling across her features as her mother pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of her nose. Soft humming met her ears, and Jordan smiled ever so wider at the familiar sound. Before long her mother’s hand was patting tenderly at her back. 

_ Pat, pat, a smooth rub in a circle, then up and down, before repeating the process.  _

By the time the song she was humming came to an end Jordan’s bright eyes were closing. With each blink the brown orbs fell shut for longer periods of time, seemingly heavier every time she battled to open them. The gentle smile stayed when her eyes did finally remain shut. 

Her mother smiled at the sleeping girl. Pushing herself to tuck the blanket around her exhausted form before she turned and left the bedroom. The door was ajar to let the slight light of the hallway creep in through the gap; just incase the child was struck by another bout of nightmares, as was common lately.

At barely ten that night the phone rang, piercing the calm of the home. Jordan still slept on, her brother had gone to his room half an hour prior, and her mother was settled in the kitchen to make some dinner for when Jordan’s father was to arrive home. 

She answered the phone with an almost hopeful spring in her step. The smile on her face fell just as the chicken in the frying pan began to burn to a cinder. 

Jordan awoke to the undeniable sounds of her mother crying. The girl with her heart full of hope and happiness, pushed herself out of bed ready to give her mom a strong hug for whatever reason it was needed. She had just slipped into her slippers, tugging her tatty brown bear behind her, when she bumped into her brother on the hallway. 

“Matty? What’s wrong?” She blinked the tiredness away before raising her free hand to rub with the back of it against her eyes. 

“I don’t know, Jordan.” Matthew, her brother, huffed. He had obviously grown fed up of the curious child’s constant questions. Regardless, he sighed and looked to the girl with a pat atop her head. “Why don’t you go back to bed, I’ll go see what’s wrong.” 

He was older than her by four years, and definitely wiser than her. The boy understood the last thing his mom would have wanted was her two children prying into her business. But, he had promised his sister. 

“Okay.” Jordan nodded, her disheveled hair bouncing on her head. She lazily turned and walked back into her bedroom. 

Jordan couldn’t reach the light switch on the wall without dragging the small chair away from her tea party table, and frankly that would make too much noise. Instead she walked to the side of her bed and turned on the lamp. Her index finger played over the worn down label attached to her teddy, she was subconsciously bitting the inside of her lip. 

Her mommy was crying louder now. Matthew had reached downstairs moments before, Jordan knew it. Something must be very wrong if the crying only got worse. Still she stood there on her bedroom rug near the bedside table, daring not move. Her brown hues were wet with tears even though Jordan didn’t know why they happened to be that way. Empathy, one would call it. Someone else was upset so by right she felt her heart sink to her stomach. 

The burning smell of the chicken reached her room and she frowned a little more. The sound of the frying pan cremating the meat faded away into nothing; Matty was obviously handling the issue. Now that the other sounds seemed to have ceased her mother’s crying sounded even louder. Jordan braved herself with a very deep breath before she walked out into the hallway. 

Just as she came to the top step the girl froze. A piercing scream, like none she had ever heard before, filled the home. It was Matthew, she knew that for certain. It didn’t stop. It carried on for so long, and her mother’s franticness grew. Jordan took the stairs as fast as she could now. Her slippered feet meeting the wooden floor of the living room within moments. 

There, on the floor just a few feet from the couch, was Matthew. Writhing upon the floor in pain. Tears streaked his face, his body contorted in so many ways Jordan couldn’t keep track of him. He still screamed on, rigid hands clutching one around his stomach the other pressed to his forehead. 

Her mother was in the kitchen doorway in complete shock. One of her own hands was on her forehead, the other clasped very tightly over her mouth. She was still crying as she carried on watching her son’s body convulse from the immense pain. 

Jordan stood just over the doors threshold. Her lips were quivering at the sides and her bear had fallen to the floor in a clatter of beads lost within the sounds of screaming and crying. She barely had a sense of the time but they must have stayed in those places for five or so minutes before her mother took steps away from the living room. Knocking into a kitchen cupboard before she sunk down it into a crumpled heap upon the floor. 

She watched through horrified and very scared eyes as her brother seemed to still twitch and shake from the pains. Saw the slight tinge of red that had tainted his fingers from a cut along his forehead. The coffee table, once light, now stained on the corner from where his head must have smashed against it. 

Before long the door was heavily knocked upon. 

After another moment it was kicked. 

Flying open a swarm of police entered the scene. One called through their walkie-talkie for an ambulance. Another tried to arrest her mother. Jordan saw first hand just where the pain had come from, and she wished she had not. 

The cop fell to the ground much like her brother. Stunned by the pain he cried out and slumped away from her hysterical mom. Guns automatically pointed her way whilst one officer swept the small girl into their arms and took her out of the home. 

Jordan last saw her mother and brother that night. 

The police men offered her a cup of juice and a snack, settled her down on one of the sofa’s in their office for the night since social services would only be called in the morning. She cried herself to sleep, clutching to the bear as if it were her last lifeline. The final words that left her mouth that night was the faint sob of, “Daddy?” 

At nine that morning a blonde social worker came and visited Jordan. She was accompanied by an all-too nice lady, with bright red locks, who claimed to be there to help. They passed her paper and a box of crayons, set a camera up within the chief’s office and chatted to her as if it were the most normal of set ups. 

“Jordan?” The psychologist asked firstly, tossing her ginger hair to one side with a sigh. “My name is Dr. Miller.” She finally introduced after not getting a response. Trying to give the girl the most comforting of smiles. 

Jordan sat on a chair with swinging legs, her feet definitely not reaching the floor. One elbow was against the desk, her head lolled against her hand. The other idly drew with a purple crayon. A flower, maybe. It could be a dog or a cat. Maybe a very discoloured sun. The two women in the room could never determine the series of scribbles. 

“Is Matty gonna be okay?” She asked, brown eyes looking to the ginger woman. They didn’t seem as bright as they had yesterday. They were deflated by what they had seen and by the weight of tiredness and hours of crying. 

“He should be, yes.” Dr. Diane Miller nodded her head. “Matthew had a bump to his head.” Jordan only nodded in a reply, remembering the sight of blood tainting his pale skin. It had terrified her, “Has that ever happened before?” 

Jordan still gave no reply, her legs seemed to swing more vigorously. Soon enough her drawings became less intentional. The once flower-cat-dog became scribbles of pointlessness. Spirals, crossed lines, shapes, anything to distract herself. 

“Jordan? Sweetheart.” Diane craned her neck to look at the girl. Struggling to meet her turned down gaze. 

To her surprise, Jordan looked up, eyebrows raised, eyes wide. “Where’s Mommy? ...Daddy?” 

That brought a sigh from the two women. 

“Jordan,” The blonde now spoke, twisting her body towards the girl. She reached softly over and took the purple crayon from her clutch. It met the table with a muted clatter before a finger hooked beneath Jordan’s chin, forcing her gaze onto her blue eyes. “Daddy had an accident last night.” Her words started off slow. When she saw a look of pain twist over the girl’s features she knew she had gotten the message that he may be hurt, at least, so she decided to continue. “He didn’t make it.”

“Didn’t make it where?” A faint whisper came from the child.

“He died, sweetie. He had to go to heaven.” 

For a seven year old Jordan was pretty sheltered to things like this. She had never gotten a pet to learn that one day they died, nor had she met her family members in order to learn of the deaths that had happened since she had been born. Instead her slight information on this came from the school playground. Her friend, Sean, had lost his grandmother once. She didn’t know what the big fuss was but it wasn’t like she had a grandmother of her own to know. Instead she had hugged him, and cried with him, told him it would be okay - and then raced him to the slide. 

The joy of a child’s mind. 

“Is Matty going there too? Since he had an accident?” Jordan asked now, glancing back to Diane. 

Her head shook in reply. Two hands clasped and the woman leaned on the desk to look closer at the little girl. “Does Matty have a lot of accidents at home, Jordan?” 

She thought for a moment. Her lips screwed to the side, eyebrows knitting together. The girl hadn’t even understood that her father was dead and now they were bombarding her with more questions. How was she meant to know that they believed her mother to have been abusing Matthew? 

A list popped into her mind. Matty tripped in the garden once and scraped up his knee. He had broken two fingers when he fell off of one of the tree’s branches, too. There was also the time they both decided to play ‘jump on the bed’ and Matty had jumped right off and broken his collarbone. Along with the actual injuries he had broken many vases and pieces of electrical equipment around the home, usually with a ball of some form. 

Her parents had both called those all ‘accidents’. 

So, she nodded her head. “I guess, yeah.” 

Little did she know just how big an impact those words would have on her future. 


End file.
